The season to be jolly!

Well that’s Christmas over for another year. Mine was pretty reasonable, I find they get calmer and less self indulgent as I get older. Mind you it’s nice to have the freedom to celebrate, even if you don’t actually believe in the underlying basis of the event. I prefer to think of it in older pagan terms, the passing of the winter solstice & all that. 

Even though I personally have no regard for christianity I can’t help feeling that some christians are a bit hard done by. Such as these unfortunates who chose to celebrate Christmas in that jolly muslim country, Saudi Arabia. Somehow I have never regarded my plans for Christmas as “plotting”. 

Most of those at the party were christian though I expect that the ire of the police was particularly directed at the few moslems there. In that other jolly country Iran some poor bugger is facing a possible death sentence simply for becoming a christian. Just how rabid and prejudiced these people are is illustrated by the fact that his lawyer has been sentenced to 9 years inside for the heinous crime of representing him. 

Happy Christmas

Being a cynical old git DZ has scoured the web to find something really classy as a Christmas post.

Let down!

Hot on the heels of my tirade yesterday against the Prince of Wales come two news articles which would, sadly, seem to support his allegations. 

The first is about this individual, who was erased from the medical register. I think the erasure was right and proper, his conduct inexcusable. But..... The peculiar circumstances of a RAMC regimental Medical Officer will have played a large part in the doctor’s actions and appear not to have been addressed, or even mentioned. An RMO works in an environment totally isolated from other medical colleagues, and surrounded by his other, non medical, officers 24 hours a day. If, as appears to be the case, there was institutionalised violence towards prisoners by the regiment, it would have taken enormous courage and strength of character to have stood alone and challenged this. The consequences to him within the regiment would have been unthinkable, and his position would have become impossible. It is a great shame that he lacked the necessary courage, but also that there does not appear to be any form of support from the higher echelons of the RAMC to medical officers in such situations.

The second is this report about Alexandra Hospital Redditch, which reminds one of Stafford. Many of our colleagues let down their profession and the NHS in these places and I can’t even begin to understand why. I don’t want to make excuses for the actions of the staff involved, they are inexcusable but I have no doubt that, like Stafford, the problems at Redditch will be found to emanate from the top. After all the CE is where the buck stops. I have no doubt that heads will roll at the sharp end. I wonder if anything will happen to this lot.

Penny Venables - Chief Executive - Worcestershire acute hospitals NHS Trust

Circumstances like these are unusual. They came to light after 100 hospitals had spot checks, 98 of which were not like Redditch. So I stand by my assertion that true care and compassion is the norm in the NHS, and that Charlie boy is still a twat.

The perils of inbreeding

I think most of us who work in the NHS are well used to various people trying to tell us how to do our job. And without exception it is those with the least experience and knowledge that are the most anxious to give us the benefit of their ignorant and ill informed opinions.

Politicians, priests, hospital managers......I could compile a list that would go on & on, consisting of those who have never spent a day at the sharp end. And so it is with this absolute and irredeemable fuckwit who feels that we are all callous, uncaring and cold towards our patients. He pontificates his view that “age-old qualities of human kindness” were “palpably lacking” in hospitals and clinics. 

Can anyone tell me why this big mouthed empty headed twat is given any publicity at all to spout this bollocks as if he knew anything about it. When has this man ever been a patient in an NHS hospital, or spent even just a few hours simply watching people at work?

I worked in the NHS all my adult life. I saw all grades of staff from every medical profession at work. While it is true that a small number of those I encountered were possibly as described by Charlie, the vast majority were not. Compassion and caring did, and does abound in NHS staff on a scale beyond this man’s understanding. 

Having to endure the unevidenced spewings of this privileged and cushioned knob as if his views carried any weight makes me angry beyond words. I doubt he’ll ever read this but I would hope from somewhere he gets this message.

“You know absolutely fuck all about it so shut your mouth and fuck off and keep your insulting ignorance and unspeakable arrogance to yourself!”

Mayan calendar

Well we're all still here then. Bugger it, that means I'm going to have to pay for all that Christmas credit card spending. Hang on, I have an advent calendar that ends in two days. OH GOD WE'RE ALL DOOMED!!!!!!!!

RIP CEA

I’ve been anticipating and predicting for some time the demise of the Clinical Excellence Award. It seems that the death of this system is not going to be quick and clean, and that there is going to be collateral damage to the pay of Consultants who don’t  even receive one. One thing I didn't see coming was a 20% cut in the rate of pay! The whole exercise for many will be the last straw and any doubts about retiring rather than suffer the abortion that is revalidation will now evaporate. It is my belief that in the next year or two there will be a mass exodus, and a shortage not only of numbers of Consultants, but of the most senior and experienced. The BMA will, as usual, prove utterly impotent and hospital doctors will be further massively demoralised. Only those employed through agencies can expect a bright future. No way to treat the profession.

Arithmetic

I’ve looked again at that last post and I have to say I felt a little suspicious about that figure of a billion pounds a year quoted on Sky news.. So I thought I would do a little simple arithmetic.

A typical cost to the taxpayer of providing a child with a free meal at school is about £2.20. School term times add up to about 40, 5 day weeks of the year or 200 meals per child per year.

It is estimated that about 1.1 million children in Britain are eligible to claim a free meal, but only about 800,000 actually claim. Doing the sums gives a cost to the taxpayer of 352 million pounds a year. Not a billion then, or even close. Even if all those eligible claimed the cost would still only be £484 million.

There are about 26 million taxpayers in Britain. So put your hand up if you begrudge paying £18.62 per year to prevent British children going hungry. There are lots of things I begrudge my tax being spent on but that isn’t one of them.

One billion pounds would provide a free school meal to every primary school child in England. The cold hearted cruelty it would require to try and save money on these most vulnerable members of society is bad enough. But to argue on the basis of inaccurate and untruthful figures is just despicable.

So tell me Mr Cameron. How much did your meal cost the taxpayer? You know, the one at the guildhall banquet where you stuffed yourself so full you burst your shirt open, you greedy fat bastard. I'll bet it cost a lot more than £2.20!

Priorities

Standards of child nutrition vary widely from country to country. Only this morning the news featured a country where a significant number of children arrive at school unfed, and only get fed during the school day because of the generosity of their teachers. A country where vitamin D deficiency is thought to affect 25% of children and clinical Rickets is on the increase.

So which poverty stricken third world country is it that can’t adequately feed it’s children? Both these stories were describing the situation in the UK. It could be far worse were it not for the fact that over one million children in the UK are entitled to free school meals. 

It was stated by the reporter that free school meals cost the taxpayer one billion pounds a year. Now I don’t know if what he said next originated with the news channel or from some government spokesman but it was stated that this sum was excessive and unaffordable.

What sort of a country whinges about the cost of feeding it’s children? What sort of people begrudge paying taxes to ensure children are adequately nourished? To put things in perspective the money spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would pay the free school meals bill for 20 years.

Things that make you go hmmmmm

I've just come across this picture in an ad for the TV series Downton Abbey and I'm asking myself......

Why has this lady got a tampax stuck up her nose

Emergence

In my lifetime I have seen, in this country at least, a gradual loosening of the grip of religions on the populace. The latest census confirms what was fairly obvious, that this shaking off of irrational belief in an invisible man in the sky is gathering pace. One in four of us now reject the concept of religion entirely. 

It’s also true that those who still profess faith are very much the older age groups, and, with time the proportion of believers is bound to drop considerably more.

About time too. Why has it taken us this long?

Spammers

I've been getting an awful lot of spam comments lately. The format is always the same. A gushing compliment on the blog or specific post, often in mangled English and not in any way relevant to the post subject, followed by a link to the commenter's own web site.

Until recently my spam filter caught most of these but they are now creeping through, and the subject matter of their links is getting increasingly undesirable. I've just deleted one possibly connecting to an under age porn site.

Comments moderation is all I can do about this. Don't be put off if you wish to make a genuine comment. Those are (almost) invariably welcome.

Professional courtesy

Thanks to JD for the information that Dr Dan Poulter of my last post was once a gynaecologist, before he became a politician. I am reminded of a comment made by an anaesthetic colleage of mine. He was anaesthetising a lady for a gynaecology colleague of whom he was not particularly fond. The gynaecologist had just inserted a Cusco into the oblivious lady.

“Look at that” said my colleague. “ A bent piece of steel with a cunt at each end!”

Another man with his head up his arse.

Health minister Dr Dan Poulter said: 

“Today is a momentous day - as doctors in the UK become the first in the world to have regular assessments to ensure that their training and expertise are up to date and that they remain fit to carry out their important role of providing high quality care for patients.

Translation

“The UK is now the only country in the world to hobble it’s medical profession in a a supremely stupid attempt at control and emasculation which will deprofessionalise and demotivate every doctor in the land at great expense for no discernible benefit.”

DZ is prepared to stand corrected but, contrary to the implication in Dr Poulter’s statement, he is not aware that any other country in the world feels it a good idea to emulate the UK in it’s intention to fuck over it’s medical profession in this act of supreme and ignorant folly.